There are select dates for when they hold these events and the room can fit up to 30 people or so.

In addition to being able to create two chocolate bars of your choice, you’re also given a drink ticket to pair a beverage of choice. Choose a nice glass of red or white wine, or perhaps a cafe drink. It’s up to you.

The Setup

The workshop room is in the back of the bistro. You can see that they’ve set the area to showcase the different ingredients. Just above is a screen which runs an informative slideshow about the specific ingredients.

Here you can see their machine that tempers the chocolate.

A close up of all the great options you can combine!

Decision Time

To start off the workshop, some decisions had to be made!

You can choose from dark or milk chocolate as your base. We chose both to mix things up a bit.

After selecting your ingredients from the menu, you simply write it onto the wrapper. (This part is actually a bit challenging if you’re indecisive… there are so many choices!!)

Getting Hands On

The Eclipse Chocolate team will collect them when you’re ready and then bring you a tray with your 3 ingredients and melted chocolate ready for mixing and pouring.

Here is my good friend, Bermellyn, pouring her first chocolate bar into the mold. Look at that concentration!!

After 15 minutes in the chiller, her first milk chocolate bar was ready.

Will came by to help us wrap the bar (which was a lot harder than it looked). But, we figured it out eventually. 🙂

Dark Chocolate Up Next

Onto the dark chocolate bar. Bermellyn was starting to get the hang of this!

Here is my mix-in for my dark chocolate bar. I chose some rather random ingredients to combine.

(Raspberry Hibiscus Sugar, Smoked Almond, & Serrano Chile Sea Salt)

I did enjoy the pouring a lot! And, what was even better was there was extra to eat with the spoon.

It’s interesting to note that the Serrano sea salt was pretty spicy in the melted chocolate. But, once it was chilled in the bar, the effect was significantly less (which was a good thing because it was too overpowering earlier).

I think I did okay with my ingredient selection. I’m glad I took some risks, but some of them just didn’t pan out perfectly. The coffee was too overpowering in my milk chocolate creation, muting the coconut and hibiscus tones. My dark chocolate one was decent, but the Serro Sea Salt was a bit too overpowering vs. the hickory and smoke flavors.

Anyhow, the next time you want to do something unique with a friend, family, or loved one, check out this super fun Build A Bar workshop!

*Disclaimer: We were provided complimentary tickets to participate in this event, however, our opinions remain our own.

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About Michael

I couldn't be luckier to call San Diego my home the past couple decades. America's "Finest City" is bursting with delicious eats in nearly every corner.
Whether you want savory or sweet, fancy or rustic, you can have it all! I have the awesome job of uncovering some of these gems, and sharing them with you.
When I'm not chowing down, I also write about $$$ at www.financiallyalert.com.
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SanDiegoFood.net is designed to chronicle our journey of San Diego Food. We have lived in San Diego for more than 15 years and love finding new restaurants and food to try. We hope this web blog can help give you a little insight, especially if you're new or visiting from San Diego.